


Harry Potter and the Scottish Childhood

by melodiousbirdsandmadrigals



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Minerva McGonagall, Don't copy to another site, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Minerva is a badass, Parent Minerva McGonagall, and she knows it, harry has a better childhood, minerva mcgonagall is the only character with any goddamn Sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2020-11-27 21:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20955326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodiousbirdsandmadrigals/pseuds/melodiousbirdsandmadrigals
Summary: Harry Potter is left on the doorstep of Number 4 Privet Drive, but Minerva McGonagall knows it's a terrible idea. When the Dursleys react poorly—as expected—Minerva takes Harry instead and decides she'll be his mum now. Just a self-indulgent little AU.





	1. The beginning

**Author's Note:**

> The real 31 October 1981 was a Saturday, making the day they deposit Harry a Sunday, but JKR says our story begins on a Tuesday, so I shan’t disagree.  
*  
originally posted to my tumblr like a year ago  
*  
no beta we die valiantly

It is the deepest of night when the first owl finds Minerva.

_Merlin be praised, it’s over. _

It can’t _possibly_ mean what she thinks it does initially. But within a quarter of an hour, she’s received another missive: _James and Lily are dead, but so is the Dark Lord. The Potter boy survives. _

If it’s true, the war is over. If it’s true, there is one more orphan today, but so many children who will grow up with happier lives, with hope, because of it.

It takes a few minutes for the deep relief to wash through her, and even then it feels like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. The source is credible, but it’s almost too good to believe that the Dark Lord is truly gone.

And then she remembers Lily and James, and Minerva—dear, steadfast, uptight (if her students are to be believed) Minerva—allows herself to cry. It is two more casualties of war, but once again, those casualties are dear friends of hers, and students before that. She sees James in her mind’s eye, still sixteen but performing a brilliant bit of magic to entertain his friends when he thinks no one is looking. Sees Lily, smile bright upon her face and deep red hair hanging loose as she laughs at something Marlene McKinnon said, and then throws out her own harmless hex which catches James and makes the rest of the table erupt with laughter, even him. She remembers their wedding, magic and light even in a time of desperate dark, and catches upon the first and only time she met their son, Harry, at an Order meeting just before they went into hiding permanently.

So just this once, Minerva lets herself sob, and a quarter of an hour later, never one for undue hysterics, she pulls herself together.

Lily had a Muggle sister, she remembers, and knowing Dumbledore, that’s exactly where Harry will end up by some time tomorrow. Her thoughts are confirmed when a letter from Hagrid arrives, hastily scrawled: _Dumbledore’s asked me teh bring Harry teh his aunt’n uncle’s tomorrow. _And suddenly, Minerva knows exactly what she has to do.

* * *

It’s just before dawn when there’s an almost inaudible _pop_ at the end of Privet Drive, and a tall, straight-backed women materializes out of nowhere. There is no one there to see but a few songbirds, still drowsy in their nests. Minerva McGonagall sweeps silently down the street, where she arrives at Number 4—an address surprisingly easy to find, once she put her mind to it. No lights have yet flicked on in the house. Minerva sighs, and between one moment and the next, a cat with heavy markings ‘round its eyes has appeared on the wall in the spot where moments ago, the woman had sat. Only a bunny one garden over is present to see this transformation. When the cat does not appear interested in it, it goes back to chewing on the remnants of the lawn.

Three quarters of an hour pass before there is any activity in the house. The wails of a child come first, and then the grumbling of his parents. Minerva does not move.

The parents shuffle around for a bit, loud and obnoxious, before Minerva finally gets a look at any of them through the front window. The woman is blond and pinched, hair in rollers. She looks nothing like the Lily Evans that Minerva knew. The man is large and beefy, and she thinks she remembers James characterizing him as a walrus. The description is apt.

By the time their breakfast routine is over, Minerva cannot help but think that they are horrible people, but tries not to pass judgement. It is, after all, very early in the morning.

The man—Vernon, as was said very loudly by his wife several times—leaves for work with a peck on the cheek. Minerva shifts slightly to make it look as if the cat is not observing the house. Instead she inspects the little street sign and neighborhood map that sits at the corner, just a ways away. There is not much to read, but she reads it anyways while Vernon pulls out of the drive and heads to work.

She shifts once more, and eyes up the mother and son in the kitchen.

By noon, she is more convinced than ever that Harry Potter, the undoubtedly sweet child of Lily and James, should not be subjected to this particular family, Muggle and blood ties be damned. Dudley (or Dudders, Sweetums, and a number of other nicknames) spends all morning fussing and throwing tantrums. He spends a large portion of this time shouting the word “won’t!” to everything but candies. Petunia spends the downtime craning her neck over the back garden wall trying to nose in on the other neighbors, and eventually telephones some friend or another to swap gossip.

The family is no less horrible over dinner, when Vernon decides to expound on the “bloody immigrants and foreigners ruining the country”. Minerva almost returns to personhood right then and there, to give him a piece of her mind.

The true nail in the coffin comes after dinner, long after Vernon has arrived home again. He tries to ask Petunia something about her sister, and the air in the room turns frigid. It becomes abundantly clear that they are the least magical type of people possible, and that Petunia’s extreme attitudes towards Lily’s magic have not changed. Vernon seems even worse, if that’s possible, muttering about the strange blighters he saw today.

Minerva balks at it all.

Harry Potter—the savior of the Wizarding World, if it’s all true—cannot be allowed to live with these close-minded bigots.

* * *

Just as she suspected, Albus Dumbledore shows up late into the night, after the inhabitants of Privet Drive have long since gone to bed. There’s another faint pop, and suddenly, a tall man with a truly impressive silvery beard is strolling down the street towards her, clicking what Minerva knows to be a Deluminator as he goes. The streetlights around them go out. Moments later, he sees her, even in the now-shadowy lane, and Minerva tilts her head, as if in greeting. A small smile adorns the man’s face.

“I should have known. Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall.”

Minerva chooses that moment to return to her human body. She rolls her shoulders once to get rid of the cricks, and then narrows her eyes slightly at Dumbledore.

“How did you know it was me?”

“My dear Professor, I have never seen a cat sit so stiffly,” is his reply.

Rather annoyed and more than vaguely sore, Minerva snaps back, “You’d be stiff too if you’d been sitting on a brick wall all day.”

They exchange news, at which time Minerva’s fears—and a number of hopes—are confirmed. Voldemort (she still shudders to say the name, but is doing her best not to) really is gone, and he really was defeated by little Harry Potter. Dumbledore really does intend to leave Harry _here_, of all places.

“You _can’t _mean the people who live here!” she exclaims. “Dumbledore, you can’t! I’ve been watching them all day. You couldn’t find two people who are less like us. Harry Potter come and live here!”

Perhaps her outburst is a little more emotional than she’d like to be in front of another person, but the situation most certainly warrants it. A poor little boy, come and live here, in this horrible home where the son spends the day screaming for sweets and the parents refuse to accept anything that doesn’t fit in their boring little ideal of a normal, white-picket-fence lifestyle? It’s ridiculous, and she’s angry at Dumbledore, angrier at him than perhaps she’s ever been in their acquaintance, because all of a sudden, she can only see her day, but worse, being every single day of poor Harry’s life. The boy who _defeated_ Voldemort, for heaven’s sake!

These thoughts consume her, and she only just catches Dumbledore’s drivel about leaving a letter.

“A letter?” she repeats back, faintly, really trying to comprehend the insanity of this particular plan. (She thinks Dumbledore is brilliant, of course, but he’s missed the mark with this one.) “Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him!” She can’t help but add that he’ll be the most famous child of their world.

Dumbledore, of course, doesn’t want the boy to grow a big head. Minerva almost snorts. He wouldn’t be growing anything in this house, because these people are dreadful. But Dumbledore has that sort of look in his eye that says he won’t back down, and so Minerva acquiesces, at least for the moment. She knows how to pick her battles.

When it doesn’t seem like Dumbledore is convinced by her sudden departure from the topic, she makes a point of questioning his choice in Hagrid, which raises his hackles slightly, just as she hoped it would, and suddenly he’s lecturing her about Hagrid’s trustworthiness instead of questioning her motives.

And then a rumble fills the air, and there is Hagrid, with tiny baby Harry, possessing a scar that flares out like lightning across his forehead.

The conversation that follows is quick, but Minerva has to shush them—after all, the Muggles don’t have access to silencing charms—and then all of a sudden, Dumbledore is leaving Harry on the doorstep with that blasted letter, and it’s time to go.

As Hagrid roars off on his motorbike, and Dumbledore strolls back down the street, re-illuminating the street, Minerva transforms back into a cat and walks the opposite direction, as if she’s about to leave.

She waits for the faint pop of Dumbledore’s apparition, and immediately trots back to where baby Harry lays, bundled up on the doorstep. It’s _November_ for goodness sake, and no place to leave a child.

She holds him close to her for several hours as he sleeps, adding a small bubble of a warming charm so the poor boy doesn’t freeze, and when the very first rays of light appear, she curls up next to him as a cat instead.

When she hears the first sounds of people moving in the house, she slinks behind a bush to keep watch. She’ll go along with Dumbledore’s harebrained scheme, but she’s going to make sure that Harry is alright, first. (Maybe they’ll prove to have a deeper goodness than she realizes. Maybe yesterday was an off sort of day.)

(She doubts it.) 

Minutes later, Petunia opens the door to put the milk bottles out. A piercing scream breaks the air when she sees the babe.

_Put Harry Potter with these Muggles, indeed_.

* * *

Vernon Dursley spends the next twenty minutes blubbering various iterations of “ABSOLUTELY NOT” from the moment that the letter is plucked out of Harry’s bundle. Various segments of it are read aloud in a variety of tones of disbelief and anger, spluttered with still more protests.

It seems for a brief moment that Petunia might argue—she gets as far as saying something about him being their nephew, and the blood magic that will protect Harry (even if it is in a disgusted, frigid tone)—when Vernon shouts something asking if she really wants the “bloody neighbors to know about their bloody strange, dead relations!” 

From her vantage, Minerva sees Petunia whiten even more, if possible.

“Right. Well, we’ll just have to drop him off at a hospital somewhere,” Petunia says, face hardening. “They can’t expect us to take care of another child. We’ve already got one.”

Vernon seems far more pleased than he has been all morning.

“Absolutely bloody right!” he spits. “The damn boy doesn’t even look like either of us.”

With what might be another hiss of _foreigners _(Minerva isn’t quite sure because it’s the first thing he’s said at a reasonable decibel all morning), he stalks off to get dressed.

Within half an hour, Vernon is loading baby Harry into the car, while Petunia remains to care for Dudley.

“I’ll go straight to work from there, and I’ll see you tonight, when all of this is behind us,” he says as he returns to the door to peck Petunia on the cheek.

Minerva manages to Disillusion herself and get into the car during this time period, so that she can stay with Harry.

A plan is already forming in her mind.

* * *

It has been years since Minerva has even entertained the idea of having children, and it’s not even something she thought about a great deal. She supposed that she thought about it with Dougal, but only briefly, and Elphinstone was rather old by the time they’d married. After her husband died, she’d disregarded the idea all together: love had not been particularly kind to her, and perhaps it was a sign from the universe that she wasn’t meant to have a child of her own, not that she’d ever had the burning inclination that she knew some women did.

And besides, she had her students. It wasn’t the same, of course, but she was still responsible of shaping the minds and educations of the entirety of the Hogwarts student population, at least until 6th year. She got to mentor students and have an impact on their lives, and in many ways, it was just as rewarding as being a mother.

Today, for the first time, Minerva starts to consider what motherhood might look like for her. She likes children, after all, and has always enjoyed watching her nieces and nephews.

Dumbledore had said that he didn’t want the boy growing up with an ego, that he wanted him to be part of a normal family and not be a celebrity from this moment on. Well, she couldn’t guarantee that would happen in any other Wizarding household—would bet, in fact, that many of them _would _treat him as the Savior—but she does know that she could control how _she_ might raise Harry.

It was an absolutely insane idea, but one that grows steadily in her mind as the car barrels towards Vernon’s destination.

She is strict, everyone thinks so at Hogwarts, and she’s already the Head of Gryffindor House. She knows the basics of looking after children, and knows how to discipline strictly but fairly, and above all else, she knows how to educate. She could raise Harry to know Wizarding society while instilling proper values and making sure that he’s a good wizard as well as a great one.

And she could honor Lily and James’ memories by loving their son. She hadn’t known Lily quite as well as James, who had always had a proclivity for Transfiguration, but if Harry is anything like either of them, he would be exceptional. And in the five hours that she’d held him, waiting for the world to wake up, she’d watched his tiny features and soft baby gurgles and known that she could love this tiny boy.

And if his blood relatives were giving him up, going against even the great Dumbledore’s plans, well—why shouldn’t she? She has a lovely little cottage in Scotland, and she could raise him there, and she could send him to Muggle primary school until it was time to go to Hogwarts, and that would allow him to know both his Muggle and magical roots.

Yes, Minerva decides. This is what she’ll do.

* * *

Vernon drops baby Harry off with the same script he and Petunia discussed.

“Some vagrant left this baby on our doorstep last night, and we really can’t take another right now. We have our own, almost the same age, and it would just be too much for my wife and me.”

The hospital does a bit of paperwork, but doesn’t question him too thoroughly (_shocking_, thinks Minerva), but he’s on his way shortly, and will probably still be on time to work.

Minerva approaches the hospital clerk promptly.

“I’m interested in adopting a baby, and I’m wondering if you could direct me to the proper channels,” her voice is crisp, despite the fact that she’s barely used it in the past two days.

The clerk eyes her suspiciously, but it’s nothing that a well-placed Confundus charm doesn’t solve. It only takes a few more, with several different personnel, in order for her to achieve custody of baby Harry, and then a couple to fudge the paperwork and make it seem like no baby fitting Harry’s description ever arrived into the Muggle system. Minerva knows that there are still sympathizers of Voldemort running about, and doesn’t want to risk any record of Harry Potter anywhere that could pose a danger. She knows that with some careful planning, she can later obtain copies of Harry’s wizarding documentation.

And so it is that a mere two hours later, Minerva McGonagall is walking out of the hospital with a baby in her arms that has, for the sake of Muggle documentation, become legally hers. (The Wizarding world rarely deals with adoptions or custody—and of course she’s decided not to inform anyone of that end, anyways—so she’s all set.) Harry Potter has been an unreasonably quiet baby so far, crying a grand total of once, and stopping when a nurse arranged a bottle for him.

Minerva holds him close, and Disapperates, and the two vanish from the alleyway without anyone noticing.

* * *

A moment later, they reappear halfway across the country at the front walk of a small stone cottage on a windswept hill, just a kilometer away from a mostly-Muggle Scottish town.

Harry smiles up at her and babbles, and she briskly takes them up the front path and through the side door to the kitchen, so that she can prepare something for Harry.

They spend the rest of the day preparing her second room into something of a nursery for Harry, and by the end of the day, she’s discovered that Harry is particularly entertained by puffs of multicolored smoke. She discovers this when he accidentally gets ahold of her wand and manages to produce them on his own. (Great Merlin, she’s in for it; the boy is only just gone one.)

The smoke, however, is both a blessing and a curse. It makes Harry look around and start calling for _aba_. It only takes a few moments for Minerva’s heart to sink and realize that Harry is looking for James. She coos to him, and tries to explain (though she knows he won’t understand) that it’s just her now, his parents are gone.

This leads to tears from both parties, and cries for _ami_ and _aba_ and even, at one point, _pa’foo_ who she can’t really place. (Peter, perhaps? Or a nickname for someone else whose name Harry can’t pronounce?)

Eventually, though, he settles down to sleep, and Minerva has time to make a list of all the things that she needs to do: the materials she needs to acquire in order to raise a child, the food she needs to buy, the house-proofing she needs to do, and the fact that she needs to find a childminder, and quickly.

Classes may be cancelled at Hogwarts for the rest of the week, but she’s going to have to go back to teaching eventually, and she’ll need someone to watch baby Harry, because she certainly won’t be bringing him to the castle.

(She doesn’t trust Dumbledore’s judgment on this one. He was very clearly mistaken, but she imagines that he’s stubborn enough, convinced enough of his own intellect, that he would try again, with even more disastrous results, and Minerva won’t abide by it. It’s been a long war, and this poor child clearly just needs someone to love him. It’s settled: she won’t be telling Dumbledore something important, for what may be the very first time in her life.)

She falls asleep exhausted, but satisfied in her day’s work.

* * *

It’s honestly quite a learning curve.

Harry is still an exceptionally good baby, but he’s gone through quite a trauma, and it shows in the next few days.

Her heart breaks every time he calls out for someone who is no longer there, and he cries quite a bit around bedtime, and she finds she can’t wear her black cloak (only the black one) without upsetting him.

But he seems to like her, and he usually quiets down so long as he’s being held, and she finds that overall, it isn’t too different from the times she’s cared for her brothers’ children—it’s just more permanent.

She takes an ad out in the local Muggle paper, inquiring about weekday childminders, and spends the end of the week and the weekend interviewing candidates, Harry by her side.

There are several ones that seem like they might be appropriate, but in the end, she chooses an older woman named Sadia, not only because she’s raised five children and been a child-minder for years, but because she speaks Urdu and Punjabi as well as English.

Minerva knew Euphemia, and knew that she spoke Urdu, something she passed on to James. She remembers him using it mumble things under his breath that he didn’t want people to understand, and more impressively, she remembers that he spent a lot of time reading about how magic was used in other cultures. Euphemia clearly taught him some wandwork along with the language, because she remembers some very impressive spells that were most certainly not part of Hogwarts curriculum, nor derived from English or Latin. She feels certain that James would have passed this on to Harry—likely had already started, if Harry’s babbling is anything to go by—and she desperately wants him to have this connection to his father, his heritage. She wants this other avenue of magic for him, even if she can’t be the one to teach it to him. She knows what it feels like to grow up stifled, to feel as though you’re keeping a secret, and she never wants that to be Harry’s experience.

Minerva hires Sadia on the spot, on the condition that she’ll speak pretty much exclusively to Harry in Urdu (even if it’s not quite the exact dialect Euphemia and James might’ve known), and feels incredibly satisfied that she’ll be able to go back to school the next day, Monday, with someone to look after Harry.

* * *

The days after that pass quickly.

Minerva settles back into her routine at Hogwarts, while simultaneously adjusting to her routine as a mother. Because of Voldemort’s defeat, there’s an air of lightness and hope at the school that she hasn’t seen in a long time, and it gives her an energy she might otherwise lack.

She continues to not mention her new situation to Dumbledore, and if he’s guessed that something is different—that she has a baby at home, that she’s looking more tired lately due to said baby at home, etc.—he hasn’t mentioned it.

As the months progress, it gets easier, even if she is constantly exhausted. After all, she does have twelve classes worth of students, and therefore hundreds of educations, to look after during the day, on top of a 16-month old. Her nights are filled with finding something that a fussy Harry will eat, and getting him to take a bath (often with the help of a light show and a number of animated bath toys), and reading him stories. Sometimes, when her work load is extremely heavy, she switches out _The Tales of Beetle the Bard_ for her students’ essays and reads them out loud to Harry as she corrects them.

On one such night, it is her sixth year’s essays on the advanced mechanics of becoming Animagi. “—and due to this lunar property, the witch or wizard must hold the sliver of Mandrake root under his or her tongue for the duration of a full month, whereby—”

She’s interrupted by a gurgle from Harry, and then the word “no”, quietly. She can’t help but smile.

“Very good, Harry, you’re absolutely right. It is not a Mandrake root, but rather a Mandrake _leaf_ that the Animagus hopeful must carry under their tongue. Mr. Appleby will have to try just a smidge harder. I would hate to see the results of holding a slice of Mandrake root under one’s tongue.” She shudders slightly, and Harry babbles again. “Yes, I suppose it is a run-on to boot. Although I’m rather more concerned with the magical theory.”

Harry goes back to toddling ‘round the room, looking for Elvendork.

(It goes like this: About two weeks after she first collected Harry, she goes through some of her correspondence with James, and realizes that the Potters had a cat, which James had called “Elvendork”—she remembers grimacing at the name the first time she read the letter. She asks Sadia to stay a bit later that Friday, and Apparates to Godric’s Hollow, where she approaches the Potter’s house—or what’s left of it. Already, there is graffiti on the gate, leaving messages of encouragement for Harry. Someday, there will be a plaque there too, but she doesn’t know that yet. The top floor of the house itself has been blown to smithereens—where the curse rebounded off of Harry, she realizes—but the bottom remains largely intact. She is able to enter the house—she’s unsure if it is because she is an Order member, or if it no longer holds any protective spells—and finds a number of remnants of the former inhabitants.

Minerva realizes that she should have come sooner. She searches the house for every single picture she can find—and there are quite a few—as well as Harry’s toys, baby blankets, clothes—anything that she thinks he might find comfort in now, as well as mementos he might someday like, such as books owned by his parents, and their correspondence tucked away in desks. Lily and James were buried with their wands, otherwise she’d look for those, too. In the end, she has to put an Undetectable Extension Charm on a bag to fit everything, because James and Lily had made the house a rather comfortable one, and Minerva is overcome—just this once—by sentimentality.

She has been in the house a little over an hour when she hears what she realizes she initially came for: the mewl of a cat that has slunk out of the kitchen.

“Elvendork?” she asks crisply. The cat tilts its head for a moment, as if considering her, and then slinks forward to butt its head against her leg. “Right. Come along then.”

Elvendork allows herself to be picked up, and Minerva promptly takes one last look around the place, and then Apparates back to Briar Cottage.

Elvendork, needless to say, is Very Upset at the Apparition, but seems thrilled to see Harry, who immediately squirms in Sadia’s arms trying to reach her. “E’fnd!” he says happily, and toddles over to run his chubby hand carefully over her head.

“It seems we have a new pet,” Minerva says wryly to Sadia, who smiles and hugs Harry before she leaves.)

By Yuletide, Minerva has firmly settled into her routine, and while Harry still very clearly misses his parents (and can identify their pictures as _ami _and _aba_), he has very much warmed up to her. He now comes looking for hugs (the first time he did so, Minerva felt her heart warm dramatically), and will settle down with some soothing words from her when he falls and hurts himself. He asks her to read to him (well, sort of), and they enjoy some lovely afternoons out in the snow.

Their first Christmas together is bittersweet for Minerva, who knows what Harry should’ve had, but she puts up a tree, and takes him for walks in the village to see the twinkling lights, and later Harry delights in the shiny baubles and small assortment of packages on Christmas day. (He’s more enthralled with the wrapping paper than the gifts themselves, which are entirely comprised of a few books and some of the old toys she’d found in Godric’s Hollow, but it’s a happy moment nonetheless.)

It’s just after New Year’s when Harry, for the first time, snuggles into her arms one evening when she’s grading papers and has forgotten the time, says “mama, up”. She almost cries, and spends some extra time tucking Harry in, unsure of how to react. (She knows it’s not what he called Lily, which makes her feel slightly better, and it’s certainly not how she’s been referring to herself…it must have been Sadia’s doing. Ultimately, she can’t say that she isn’t pleased.)

* * *

Their lives continue to go surprisingly smoothly. Minerva almost forgets that she’s keeping the rather enormous secret that _Harry Potter, Savior Of The Wizarding World_, is now _her son_.

By the time summer rolls around, he’s speaking in almost-complete sentences in both English and Urdu (although he’s remarkably good at only speaking Urdu to Sadia, and only speaking English to Minerva, knowing intuitively when he’s supposed to use what), and Minerva very much enjoys when term ends and she can spend more time at home, even if she has a dreadful amount of curriculum and lesson planning to accomplish before the summer is over. Despite the fact that she’s more consistently at home, she keeps Sadia on her weekly basis over the summer, mostly because she doesn’t want to lose her when the school year rolls around, and partly because Sadia is wonderful company. She’s horribly interesting, and the two swap stories over tea and scones while they watch Harry dash about the highlands on mostly-steady feet, while Elvendork lounges in the sun.

That is not to say life is sun-soaked. Harry has the sort of tantrums any two-year-old might have, and Minerva is living up to her promise to herself that she will be a strict mother and make sure his head doesn’t inflate. His bedtime is set, he isn’t allowed sweets on a regular basis, and even at a young age, she makes sure he has some manners (which mostly just include “please” and “thank you” at this point). She’s still exhausted, and she constantly questions whether she is doing right by Lily and James’ son. Minerva thinks they would approve, and from what she knew of Lily’s personal life, she thinks Lily wouldn’t have wanted Harry with Petunia anyways.

Other than the moments when Harry manages to get ahold of Minerva’s wand, his first accidental magic comes that summer in two forms: the first is when he refuses to put down a handful of daisies before bed. She tries to pry them from his hands, insisting that flowers are for the outside only, and not for bedtime, when they start to replicate like mad, and soon daisies are spilling out of both their hands onto the bedroom floor.

Harry starts to giggle, awash in daisies—an astonishing facsimile of the _Gemino_ charm—and Minerva works hard not to smile, because she always appreciates impressive magic, and it _is_ rather impressive accidental magic, to be sure.

She scolds him gently, and they compromise (well, sort of; he is two and doesn’t really know the meaning of compromise) on a single vase of daisies on the dresser. They can be in his room, so long as they are not on his bed. She cleans the rest of the flowers up, and makes a number of bundles, several of which she’ll give to Sadia.

The second form of accidental magic is when she finds Harry in the garden one Sunday afternoon with half a dozen garter snakes sitting around him. It almost looks like he’s holding court; they’ve all lifted their heads, as though they’re actually focused on him, and he’s chatting happily at them, except that it’s not words so much as hisses.

And that is how Minerva finds out that Harry is also a Parselmouth.

It frightens her, momentarily, but Harry is so gentle with his new friends, and after a bit, they all slither off, and Harry sees her, smiles and runs over to hug her knees. She reads up on it later, and decides that it’s not much of a problem, even though it’s rare, so long as Harry remains gentle and kind. After all, she remembers her own mother telling her how she always had an affinity for cats, that she communicated with their own cat long before she could talk. It’s just another animal, and Harry didn’t have a chance to interact with them before the weather got warm.

* * *

As summer draws to a close, she finds out that Dumbledore has finally decided that Harry Potter (who is presumably still with his aunt and uncle in Surrey) needs more surveillance. He mentions casually to Minerva one day just before term starts that Arabella Figg will be moving to Privet Drive shortly to keep an eye on Harry.

Minerva nods, but doesn’t say much more.

It takes several months for Arabella to move in, and several more for her to determine that not only do the Dursleys not have two children but, according to neighbors, they never have. Harry Potter, it seems, has disappeared off the face of the Earth. Arabella spends quite a lot of time prying and spying (so much so that for that singular period, she nearly takes Petunia’s title as Privet Drive’s busybody), and then when that yields nothing, she digs through Muggle records, looking for where he could have possibly disappeared to.

But Minerva has done her job well, and no real paper trail exists. No one remembers a thing, and there is no record of any boy matching Harry’s description in any Muggle system or office.

It’s just past the New Year, and she’s had Harry for about 14 months (nearly as long, she realizes, as James and Lily ever got to have with him), when she happens upon the aftermath of the Harry-Potter-Is-Missing disaster.

She’d been summoned to Albus’s office, and she enters just as the torso of Cornelius Fudge finishes yelling at Dumbledore from the fireplace, brandishing this morning's newspaper (which bears the headline _Boy-Who-Lived Dead?_).

“I was assured the boy would be safe there, Dumbledore, instead of with a proper, suitable Wizarding family! This is a public relations disaster! I want the boy found!”

As Fudge’s face flicks out, Minerva is struck by how extremely _old_ Dumbledore looks in this moment. The look on his face vanishes when he sees Minerva, and he strives for the usual twinkle in his eye.

“I see the Minister is not pleased,” is what Minerva decides on.

“No, I should think not. It seems Petunia disregarded my note and the protection that Lily’s sacrifice afforded, and discarded the boy. And no Muggle Office seems to hold any paperwork, no record of any boy fitting Harry’s description.”

“What a shame,” says Minerva curtly.

“I must note that you do not seem particularly upset for someone who was right, my dear Professor.”

Now, Minerva decides, is the time to come clean. As much as she’d like to keep living with Harry in their own little bubble, she can’t very well cause a national magical crisis for Dumbledore and Fudge. And her son’s protection is very much important. If she plays it right, she might be able to get an ally in Dumbledore, which will mean no trouble from the Ministry.

“Well, it certainly helps that Harry has been living with me for more than a year now,” she says briskly.

Dumbledore, for once, looks well and truly surprised. He also very much looks like he wants to say something, but Minerva cuts him off with a sharp look. “And that’s where he’ll be _staying_.”

Her words brook no arguments, and she quite think she’s never looked quite as stern and severe as she does in this moment.

“Very well,” says Dumbledore slowly. “He will stay with you. But you’re going to need to fill me in on rather a lot of this story, Minerva.”

With a raise of her eyebrow, she responds, “There’s no time like the present, Albus.”

It’s a long story, of course, but she’ll be able to tell it in time to get back for afternoon tea with Harry and Sadia.


	2. Year One - Abridged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small foray into some of the bits of Year One that would be slightly altered if Harry had grown up with Minerva as his mum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all the wanderers who come across this: I had originally intended to make this a broader series, with a number of works that I was (very slowly) working through. Instead, I'm choosing to post what I have written from Year 1 (admittedly a little uneven in terms of pacing) and end it there. I want to be upfront about the extremely choppy pacing (heavy on the first half of the year, then a jump from Christmas to the end of year one) in case anyone wants to nope back out after the ending of Chapter 1, which itself can be an ending. 
> 
> Because of recent statements by JKR, I personally cannot continue to contribute to HP fandom now and possibly ever. Trans women are women and trans men are men, and I am unequivocally opposed to JKR's TERF-y statements. She no longer stands for the ideals of inclusion, love, tolerance, and understanding that were meant to be hallmarks of the HP world, and even though I think Daniel Radcliffe summed it up really well in his statement to the Trevor Project, I'm personally currently unable to separate the author from the work enough to retain enjoyment and magic. 
> 
> I do hope you enjoy this little addition, and I wish you all nothing but love and kindness.

Harry Potter grew up knowing that he was not normal, at least in comparison to the children with whom he went to primary school. This was neither a good thing nor a bad thing; it simply was.

You see, he could do _ magic. _He was a Wizard. Mostly it was spouts of accidental magic, because he was not yet old enough to do Proper Magic, the way his mum could. But he was to do his best to not let any of that magic escape him while he was at school during the day. This was because the children he went to primary school with were all Muggles.

Sometimes, Harry thought, if he had not explicitly grown up knowing he was a Wizard, he wouldn’t have believed it himself.

He grew up in a relatively non-magical household, considering his mum was a witch and so was he. Mum insisted on doing things the Muggle way, for the most part. All the chores were done by hand, unless it was a very special day. Dishes were washed, clothes mended, and dusting was done together on the weekends, with a radio playing in the background that sometimes played Muggle music and sometimes played Wizarding music, depending on whether someone named Celestina Warbeck had recently released an album (Mum _ hated _ Celestina Warbeck, but let him listen to the Weird Sisters, whom she said at least had rhythm).

During the week, Harry was expected to go to school and then come home and do his homework. When his mum got home from teaching, he could ask her any questions he liked about his homework. (She’d stopped automatically checking that he’d done his homework when he was 8, because he was grown up enough to be responsible for it himself.) He then had leisure time to go to a friend’s house, or run around in the garden with Elvendork, or chat with his mother, who often had funny stories about things that her students had done that day. This year, she had quite a few stories about a pair of twins who had just started Hogwarts and were absolute terrors. She privately admitted to Harry that she thought them quite creative, even if they were horrible at abiding by the rules.

On Saturdays, he spent the day at Sadia’s house, the woman who had been his nanny until he’d been old enough to start primary school. He enjoyed these days greatly, because Sadia was a fantastic cook, and made the sorts of spicy food that the Hogwarts House Elves never thought to make, and the two of them chatted away in Urdu, so that Harry would remain fluent. Sadia was the warmest person that Harry knew, and she was very much the closest thing that he had to a grandmother, even though she was only a few years older than his mum. She spoiled him in a way that his mum didn’t (as grandmothers are wont to do), and she always had something wise to say about life.

Sundays, however, were his favorite day of the week. In fact, Sunday afternoons were the most magical days of the week, because that was the day that his mum let him spend all day at Hogwarts. The mornings were usually spent with Hagrid, who was apt to take him into the Forbidden Forest if he asked nicely, and Fang, who very much liked Harry’s attention. Other times, he wandered the greenhouses where Professor Sprout would show him how to care for flutterby bushes, or how to prune back some of the less-lethal plants. But afternoons were the best, because his mum would take a bit of time from her grading to teach him a bit of magical theory or history or arithmancy (which was really just a magical take on sums). She would let him experiment a bit with the simplest of spells, or would set up a cauldron and allow him to test out a basic potion. Producing magic was—well, _ magical _ for Harry, and he was always pleased when his mum let him try something new.

So, for an abnormal life, his life was very normal. Except for one thing.

Harry Potter had survived the Killing Curse when he was only a baby, the same curse that had killed his _ ami _ and _ aba _and left him with a lightning scar on his forehead. That was how he’d ended up with his mum, traipsing about the Hogwarts grounds on the weekends, instead of in a Wizarding neighborhood. He was apparently very famous, and this made him very uncomfortable, because he was really only just Harry, son of Minerva (and Lily and James), and there wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about him, except for something he’d done as a baby.

Harry personally felt that that was a lot of pressure, most especially because he didn’t remember any of it. His mum had been very upfront with him all his life, starting when he was five and had asked why he kept dreaming about a flashing green light.

His mum had told him the whole story as best as she could, and told him that’s why there were pictures of _ ami _ and _ aba _ on the mantel and in the photobook. She’d later told him that “savior of the wizarding world” or not, she was still just her son, and he’d best eat his sprouts if he wanted any pudding. That had made him feel exponentially better. His mum was like that. She could be a bit strict sometimes, but he could always count on her, for both advice and a hug.

Together, they had formed a plan of action. It was not common knowledge that Minerva McGonagall was raising Harry, save for the staff of Hogwarts and a few people at the Ministry of Magic, so he could pass under the radar. They grew his (very thick, very curly, vaguely unruly) hair out, so that it covered his scar, and Harry decided that when he attended Hogwarts, he would go by his middle name, Harry James, instead of Harry Potter.

His mum had told him quite a lot about both of his parents, and though he was proud to be a Potter, he wasn’t ready to be famous. It would probably get out eventually, but it might provide him a bit of time to adjust to school. 

* * *

Harry awaited his eleventh birthday with barely-concealed excitement, because it meant receiving his Hogwarts letter _officially. _Indeed, over breakfast, an owl swooped in with not one but _two _letters addressed to him instead of his mum. 

The owl—a beautiful specimen of the snowy variety—held out her leg expectantly, and nuzzled into Harry's hand when he thanked her. 

The first letter was the thick parchment of Hogwarts, written in lovely green ink:

_ Mr. Harry James Potter _

_ Briar Cottage _

_ Aberdeenshire, Scotland _

Inside was the welcome letter signed by his mum, and a formal list of school supplies. He gave it a cursory glance, and then turned his attention to the second letter, which was something of a mystery.

As it happens, it was from Hagrid. 

_ Dear Harry, _it read in his messy scrawl. 

_ The owl is for you. I thought you'd like one of your own, and when I saw her in the shop in Diagon, I couldn't leave her. Happy birthday! _

_ Love, Hagrid _

"Mum!' Harry exclaimed. "Can I really keep her?" 

"Well," his mum said, lips pressed together tightly. "I suppose every Hogwarts student is allowed a familiar." 

Harry whooped and went running around the garden before dashing back in with the brilliant idea to send Hagrid a note via his new owl. 

_ Dear Hagrid, _

_ Thank you so much for the owl! I love her! I've named her Hedwig because it was the name of someone in a book Mum read me that I liked. _

_ ~Harry _

"What do you say, Hedwig? Are you up for it?" 

Hedwig hooted softly and stretched out her leg. Harry grinned. 

* * *

In another lifetime, Harry Potter may have gone school shopping in Diagon Alley at age eleven for the very first time with Rubeus Hagrid, and marveled for the very first time at what a fully-wizarding street looked like. In this one, he went with his mum, and _ she _ went with two of the Muggle families whose children would begin attending Hogwarts in September, same as Harry. (She did this every year, as Deputy Headmistress, and Harry had previously gone with her twice.)

“We will be obtaining your wand separately,” his mum told him briskly the evening before, “since Mr. Ollivander can be a bit peculiar. Everything else, however, can be bought while we escort the Finch-Fletchleys and Grangers around the shops.”

And so, at promptly ten o’clock the next morning, Harry was sat in a café just ‘round the corner from the Leaky Cauldron in Muggle London, waiting to begin his school shopping.

“Remember to be patient, Harry,” said his mum before either family showed up. “They’ll likely have a lot of questions.”

“Yes, mum,” Harry replied dutifully.

“Just think how you’d feel if this was the first time you were learning about magic.”

“_Yes_, mum,” Harry said again, slightly annoyed because of course, he’d been to Muggle primary school too, and knows how to interact with his peers, thank-you-very-much.

Moments later, a family of three entered the café. Harry smiled tentatively at the girl his age, and had the vague thought that he’d finally met someone whose natural hair was more gravity-defying than his own.

“Professor McGonagall, it’s so nice to see you again!” exclaimed the girl. “Thank you so much for suggesting we meet you here.”

She then turned her attention on Harry, and stuck her hand out. “I’m Hermione Granger.”

“Er, Harry. Harry James,” Harry said, accepting her handshake while his mum spoke quietly to her parents, off to the side.

“Pleasure,” she said decisively. “We’re to be classmates, then? Are your parents non-magical too?”

“Er, not exactly,” Harry began, realizing that he had not really prepared a story as to why he was also here. He was saved, however, by the arrival of the Finch-Fletchleys, which caused a bit of a hullabaloo, because one of the boy’s fathers started apologizing profusely for being even a few minutes late, while the other began vigorously shaking everyone’s hands and expressing how excited they were to be there.

“It was really quite a shock when I got my letter,” Hermione said as the little group proceeded towards the Leaky Cauldron. “But I’m ever so excited, and so many things finally make sense, you know?”

The other boy—Justin was his name—nodded sagely. “Da was always suspicious about how I was able to get onto the counters so easily when I was little, and Papa swore my blanket used to change color when I was little.”

“_Yes_,” Hermione breathed. “Mum says when I was three my teddy ripped and she was going to throw it out, and the next thing she knew I was holding it, good as new! And I used to send books flying around the room, make them come to me when I wanted to read, but I never told my parents, for fear they’d think I was touched.”

Harry couldn’t help but smile a bit at their enthusiasm. He was sure that they would have said more, but it was at this moment that his mum tapped the bricks and Diagon Alley materialized before them.

“Oh _ my_,” squeaked Hermione, and though he had been there before, Harry couldn’t help but agree: Diagon Alley was _ fantastic_.

The three students exclaimed over a number of things and chatted eagerly while Minerva showed the parents how to exchange pounds for galleons, and then they traipsed around, collecting books and potions ingredients, getting fitted for robes and finally, stopping at Ollivander’s.

“The wand chooses the wizard,” said Mr. Ollivander, multiple times.

It took Justin just two tries to find a wand. It took Hermione far more, but on the twelfth try, her wand chose her with such fervor Mr. Ollivander clapped.

“Well done, Miss Granger, well done.”

Harry’s mum then managed to shoo the two families off subtly, suggesting they go pick up their robes while they finished up here, then meet them at Florean Fortescue’s for an ice cream afterwards.

“Harry Potter,” said Ollivander, before the door fully shut on the retreating figures of Hermione, Justin, and their parents. “I was wondering if I’d be seeing you.”

“Yes, well, here he is,” said Harry’s mum in her business tone that clearly means _ get on with it._ His mum had told him that while Ollivander was absolutely brilliant with wandlore, he gave her the shivers.

“You have your mother’s eyes,” Ollivander continued, as he pulled down the first wand Harry was meant to try. “It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work.”

“Er, thanks,” said Harry, who knew what Ollivander meant, technically, but who was feeling purposely obtuse because just like his mum, the wizard set him on edge, “but my mum’s wand is fir and dragon heartstring. And she’s standing right here.”

Harry suspected that he might get a scolding later, but it was worth the looks on both of their faces, and possibly even the experience of trying to wave wands that didn’t want to choose him.

Half an hour later, Harry, very tired—but exhilarated, and most importantly in possession of a wand—met back up with Hermione and Justin, who had just ordered their ice creams.

“I can’t wait to start reading _ Hogwarts: A History _,” Hermione was saying to Justin, who looked far more interested in his sundae than an old book. “Do you suppose I’ll be able to learn everything I need to in time?” she asked in a smaller voice, once Harry was sat with them.

“I think you’ll be just fine,” Harry said honestly, because she struck him as the type to read _ Hogwarts: A History _cover to cover, which was something he’d never managed, despite his interest in the castle. This did not seem to reassure her, however. Thinking quickly, he added, “I’ll write you when I get home, and you can owl me back with questions you’ve thought of.”

“Do you really mean it?” she asked hopefully.

Harry nodded, and found a pair of arms suddenly flung around him.

Later that night, as he tied Hermione's letter to Hedwig's leg and sent her off with a happy hoot, he thought, vaguely, that he’d just made his first wizarding friend.

* * *

Harry’s mum Side-Along Apparated him to London at precisely ten o’clock on the morning of September 1st.

“I know you’ll be a bit early, but I have matters to attend to at the castle,” she’d said before they’d departed.

This was very true: almost no one was on Platform 9 ¾ when they went through the barrier.

“Have an excellent ride, Harry,” his mum said. There was no need to say anything about missing each other, since Harry would see her at the staff table that evening. She did, however, pull Harry in for a tight hug. (Harry couldn’t find it in himself to be embarrassed since no one was around to see, plus the fact that his mum gave very good hugs when she is of a mind to.)

“I love you very much, and I’m very proud of you.”

“I love you too, Mum.”

Letting him go, Minerva nodded her head briskly, waved once, and Disapparated on the spot.

Harry was left to find a compartment, which wasn’t at all hard, considering barely anyone else had yet arrived.

He’d pulled out a Muggle novel and was reading quietly when there was a rap on his compartment door, maybe twenty minutes later. When he looked up, he saw that there was a great deal more activity on the platform, and that Hermione Granger was standing in the hallway just beyond his compartment.

“Do you mind if I sit with you?”

“Go right ahead,” Harry replied, gesturing casually at the seats across from him.

“Thanks,” she said. “And I’m not sure I ever thanked you properly for writing me with Hedwig. It really helped my parents learn how to use Owl Post.”

“No problem,” said Harry, because Hedwig had been excited for the exercise.

They chatted away as the train filled up around them, talking about the rest of their summers. Harry told Hermione a story about a cooking mishap with Sadia that made Hermione laugh. As the train began to pull out of the station, a throat cleared from the doorway.

“D’you mind?” asked a boy with shockingly red hair. “Everywhere else is full.”

* * *

At the start of term feast after the Sorting, he glanced up at the staff table (his mum gave him another of the tiny smiles she gave him after the hat called GRYFFINDOR!) and as he swept across the faces, identifying those he already knew, he felt his scar prickle. 

He absentmindedly brought his hand up to touch his forehead, and then remembered where he was and lowered it. 

"Harry, are you all right, mate?" asked Ron from beside him, noting his sudden silence. 

"Fine," said Harry, only lying a little. 

Hermione shot him a glance, but then the puddings appeared, and it was so exciting to have unrestricted access to sweets that he forgot all about the momentary pain. 

He dug in, and then spent the rest of the night chatting on his four-poster bed with Ron and the three other boys sorted into Gryffindor, Neville, Dean, and Seamus. 

* * *

By far the weirdest thing about attending Hogwarts was not the ghosts floating about or the changing staircases (all of which he is long accustomed to), but rather calling his mum “Professor McGonagall” and having her call him “Mr. James” instead of Harry. It was rather a relief when, the first weekend, she sent him an owl inviting him to tea Saturday afternoon, if he wasn’t otherwise occupied.

It was actually quite normal, and she called him Harry, and he called her Mum, and they chatted about the normal things that they used to chat about, and Harry even asked her a question about his homework for History of Magic, and her smile softened just a little before she answered. On his way out the door, she gave him a tight hug, and told him she’d see him in class (and that his work had best be done, and done properly, because she wasn’t about to give him a pass, just because he was her son, which he absolutely believed).

* * *

Over breakfast one weekend morning in October, he heard the Patil twins conversing to his right at the Gryffindor table, and couldn’t help but jump in. He knew it was a private conversation, but he was rather missing Sadia, and couldn’t even really send her letters, because an owl was not viable, and he had no access to Muggle post.

The twins were a bit surprised, but included him in the conversation, and apart from a few baffling loan words that differed from Urdu to Hindi, they understood each other well. Indeed, they spend a nice half hour complaining about a whole manner of things—from the Very British food to the Extremely British purebloods to the teachers and students that were already annoying them. Harry was never to become the best of friends with them (that title was reserved for Hermione, and soon, Ron) but from that moment on, there was a quiet, shared solidarity between them, and Harry often conversed with them whenever he was missing Sadia or feeling nostalgic for a part of his family that he hadn’t really known.

(Several years in the future, Parvati—and, eventually, Padma—will practice charms with him during the TriWizard Tournament, teaching him magic that their parents have taught them, and scouring books in Hindi that Padma has brought to school with her. One of those charms has to do with fire magic, and will save Harry from several nasty burns from the Hungarian Horntail. But none of them know this now.)

* * *

Harry knew he shouldn’t let Draco Malfoy rile him up, he really did. 

(In this timeline, their first meeting was hardly as acrimonious as it was in others—indeed, Harry James was enough of a nobody that Draco left him alone—but Malfoy quickly proved to be something of a prat, and Harry had no qualms about sassing him right back.)

Anyways, he _ knew _that he shouldn't react to Malfoy's antics. But when he snatched Neville’s Remembrall like that, Harry felt that he couldn’t really be held accountable for his actions.

It was not exactly his first time on a broom, but his mum has been extremely measured about flying lessons. They were all about technique; building blocks, so that when he started flying lessons at Hogwarts, he would have a strong foundation, even if he was never allowed to race around on a broom.

So he knew he was pushing it when he took off and soared higher than he ever had, but he was far too elated to care. It was a wonderful feeling. _ This _ was why wizards flew, this was why they were obsessed with Quidditch. When Malfoy flung the Remembrall, he didn’t think, just reacted. He went into a spectacular dive, and pulled out just in time, Remembrall intact.

“Harry James!” he winced as soon as he heard the voice, because that tone was never a good thing. “My office. Immediately.”

As they walked, he started rehearsing an apology in his head. Just as they reached her office, Professor Sprout arrived too, and so his mum sent him in without her.

He only heard snatches of the conversation.

“—solves your Seeker problem, Minerva! I saw it too, and it was spectacular!”

“Yes, Pomona, but—…—and it isn’t right to reward that sort of behavior!”

“If it were anyone else, Minerva, you know exactly what you’d do.”

There was a distinct harrumph, and then his mum marched through her office door.

“Five points from Gryffindor, Harry, for disobeying Madame Hooch. I’ll let her decide if you require any further punishment, such as detention. Until then, follow me; it is clearly time for a visit with Wood.”

Harry didn’t know quite what to think; his mum was not one for corporeal punishment, but _ wood _ sounded a bit menacing. As it happened, he needn’t have worried. They marched up to another classroom, where it was a burly student that his mum retrieved—he realized rather abruptly that it was the Quidditch captain his mum had talked about promoting over the summer. 

“Wood,” she said, at the boy’s confused look, “I have found you a Seeker.”

* * *

That Saturday, they had one of their teas after Harry’s Quidditch practice, which he veritably gushed about. He had never been to a proper Quidditch match (even at Hogwarts), and had only listened to them on the radio occasionally; his mum had been worried about accidentally exposing him as Harry Potter too young. As it turns out, Harry enjoyed the real thing _ quite _ a lot more than he’d liked listening to accounts of matches. “Thanks, mum!” he concluded. “It’s been brilliant!”

“You can thank Professor Sprout instead. She told me that had it been anyone but my son, I would have nominated them to Wood in a heartbeat, instead of telling them off. Gryffindor has needed a proper Seeker since Charlie Weasley left,” she confided, slightly conspiratorially. “And I don’t always say it, Harry, but I’m very proud that it’s you.”

Harry beamed, gave his mum a quick, tight hug, and then packed up his things. “I promised Ron I’d tell him all about it. I’ll see you later?”

His mum nodded, and he dashed out.

* * *

For all of Hermione’s faults, this could be said about her: she was a _ doer._ When she saw something that she perceived as wrong, she resolved to do something about it, and then she stuck to it.

So when they heard from Parvati who heard from Seamus who heard from Dean that Neville had hidden himself in a bathroom after a particularly rough Potions lesson, she immediately snapped to attention.

“We should go find him and make him feel better,” she said. Harry knew that she was right, objectively, but the Halloween feast was _ right there_.

Harry sighed. His mum would tell him the same thing: that they had an obligation to their friends and peers. Harry knew it could just as easily be him targeted by Snape; he _ knew _ the Potions Master hated him, but for the most part left him alone. (Harry suspected it was because he was McGonagall’s son and his mum was not someone to be trifled with, not that Snape would ever admit to being afraid of her.)

Ron, however, complained.

“Neville should get to enjoy the feast too, Ronald,” Hermione snapped. “Honestly! I’ll just look for him myself.”

She stormed off. (It was often overshadowed by all the trouble that found Harry, but Hermione had a distinct flair for the dramatic, too.) Harry felt he had no choice but to follow her, and Ron sighed and followed Harry. A moment later, they’d caught up to her, and they were nearly at the doors to the Entrance Hall when they banged open and Harry, Ron, and Hermione were shunted aside by Professor Quirrell, who dramatically declared that there was a troll in the dungeons, and he thought everyone ought to know, before passing out.

In the ensuing chaos, the three of them managed to slip out unnoticed.

“We have to warn Neville!” she cried immediately, as soon as they were in the next corridor over, and out of the way of Prefects. “Parvati said he was in a lavatory on the third floor.”

“Right,” said Harry, and they spent the next five minutes dodging authority figures in the hallways.

What ensued next was something of a bonding experience: Harry, Ron, and Hermione got to the lavatory, only to see the troll entering. When they heard Neville’s startled squeak, they went charging in, and a few clever (and lucky) spells later, there was a fully grown Mountain Troll passed out on the bathroom floor.

“You could have _ died_!” Harry’s mum shrieked at the four of them, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it was mostly aimed at him. Still, as Neville did nothing wrong and as Harry, Ron, and Hermione were only looking to help, Gryffindor lost no points and gained fifteen, and they were sent to their Houses where individual Halloween feasts continued. 

It was not quite the unbreakable bond that the combination of white lies and adrenaline produces, but Neville, Harry, Ron, and Hermione did come out of it closer friends than they might have been otherwise.

* * *

November had just arrived, and the rumors about the Mountain Troll incident were only just starting to quiet, when Hermione plopped down next to him at his table in the library with a very serious look on her face. This wasn’t anything particularly out of the ordinary for Hermione, who was far more studious and disciplined than even Harry, but what came out of her mouth almost immediately in a hushed whisper was.

“Tell me, are you actually _ the _ Harry Potter?”

It was quiet enough that no one else could possibly hear, not that there was anyone in this section of the library to hear, but it made Harry start, and his reflex was to look around frantically.

“So you _ are,_” she breathed, looking very satisfied.

“What in Merlin’s name makes you say that?” replied Harry in a harsh whisper, in somewhat of a quandary: Hermione was his friend, but he was really not sure he wanted the truth out there.

“Well,” said Hermione quickly, very obviously pleased to be able to lay out her evidence, “now that I’ve read through all our textbooks cover-to-cover a third time, I thought I’d do a bit of light reading about modern wizarding events, and I learned rather a lot about a Dark Wizard named Voldemort”—Harry noticed that she pronounced it the French way and not the English way, which made sense since she’d probably never heard the name aloud—“and his subsequent downfall due to one Harry Potter, also known as the Boy Who Lived. And I can’t help but notice that even though Harry Potter was said to go missing years ago, he was never proclaimed dead by the Ministry. He would be in our year, based on his birthday, and of course you’re the only Harry in our year, plus you mentioned once that you had a July birthday. It would make sense as to why you were with Justin and me going to Diagon Alley, if your biological parents had died. And just yesterday, I finally got a glimpse of your scar, which is very well hidden by your hair, might I add,” she finished with a huff of breath, looking slightly winded from how quickly she’d been talking.

Harry, confronted by rather a lot of evidence that he could not refute, could do nothing but nod.

“Er, yeah, you’re right, Hermione”—her eyes lit up—“but I’m keeping it a secret for a reason, so you can’t tell anyone.”

“Oh, I would never!” she immediately exclaimed. “But I’ve been _ dying _to ask you, and I just had to know once I saw the hint of a scar. It seems you’re rather famous, and there’s ever so much speculation about what happened to you.” She paused, but before Harry could say anything, she jumped in again. “I’m really glad you’re here, safe.”

“Er, me too,” said Harry.

“So what _ did _ happen to you?” Hermione asked after a beat, because although she was his friend, she sometimes wasn’t very adept with boundaries. Once she had it in her head to know something, she _ must _ find out.

On the other hand, Hermione was one of his best friends, and if he couldn’t talk to her, who could he talk to?

“My biological mother’s sister was meant to take me, but they didn’t want me, so my mum adopted me. It was all very hush-hush, because I’d been with my mum for over a year before anyone noticed I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. That’s really all there is to it. I’m not ready to be Harry Potter, Savior of the Wizarding World, so my mum and I decided that I’d go by my middle name, Harry James, instead. I reckon other people will figure it out eventually. You just got there first.”

Hermione looked very pleased with herself at this statement, but quickly sobered.

“So why were you with us, that day in Diagon Alley? Is your mum a Squib, or—?” Hermione’s eyes went comically wide the moment Harry didn’t immediately confirm his mum is a Squib, or offer any number of reasons as to why she knew his identity but didn’t come with that day. “_No!_” she squeaked.

Harry winced, caught.

“Professor McGonagall is your _ mum_?” Hermione's voice reached a new octave in her excitement and shock.

“Er, guilty?”

“Harry,” said Hermione, her voice faint and breathless, “how does your mum take her tea?”

It made him laugh. It was not at all what he was expecting, but it was so very Hermione.

If Harry was worried things with Hermione would be weird because she guessed he was technically famous, he shouldn’t have. Hermione was totally unconcerned by his theoretical fame. In fact, she was far more interested in the fact that her idol is his mother.

“I’m just saying,” said Hermione later that week, and not for the first time, “that her most recent article in _ Transfiguration Today _was absolutely brilliant!”

“Sure,” replied Harry, mostly unfazed by this, because he already knew his mum was brilliant and impacted a lot of students, “but it’s decidedly less impressive to read when you were sitting at the kitchen table doing maths when she was swearing about the peer-review comments.”

Hermione looked like she was about to shoot another round of questions at him, so Harry sighed, and added, “If you like, you can come to Saturday tea with me and ask her yourself.”

Hermione's eyes went wide, and she just nodded.

* * *

“D’you mind terribly if we stay at Hogwarts for the Christmas hols, mum?” Harry asked at Saturday tea the week that the holiday list got sent around to the students. Ron’s family’s plans changed, and he was going to be staying at Hogwarts. Even though he had loads of brothers, Harry didn’t really want him to be alone, because he seemed a bit down about everybody leaving.

“If you’d like,” Minerva said, barely looking up from the seventh year essay she was marking.

“Do you…d’you suppose we might still be able to go to the village for our Christmas Eve walk?” asked Harry. They didn’t have a great many Christmas traditions—they celebrated, but mostly nominally—but a Christmas Eve walk through the little Scottish village Harry grew up in to admire the lights is something they’d done every year of Harry’s memory.

Harry’s mum looked up, her full attention suddenly on him. She blinked. “Yes, alright. We can Floo out for the afternoon, I suppose.”

Harry grinned.

“And of course we’ll be going to Sadia’s for Boxing Day,” his mum added tartly, “so don’t make any other plans.”

If possible, Harry’s grin split wider, because he’d really been wanting to see Sadia, too.

“Right, thanks, Mum!”

When Harry dashed out a few minutes later, Minerva exhaled slowly. She allowed herself a small smile. Their village walks had been a tradition since her first Christmas with Harry, when she had the spur-of-the-moment thought that since he liked puffs of smoke and light shows so much, he might enjoy the twinkling Christmas lights. As she predicted, he loved it, and it’s something she’d done with him every Christmas since. The fact that he still wanted to go made her unbearably happy, not that she had any desire to say so aloud.

* * *

In another universe, Harry woke up to the first Christmas presents of his life; on this Christmas morning, Harry woke up to a slightly larger—but totally expected—pile of presents.

From Ron he received broom clippers; from Hermione, sweets; from Hagrid, rock cakes; from his mum, a couple of books, a pair of woolen socks, and a new pair of Quidditch gloves. (Next year, he would also receive his first Weasley sweater of many to come.) There was another parcel, too, wrapped in paper he didn’t recognize, with nothing but a note and no name. 

He and Ron marvelled over the Invisibility Cloak and took turns disappearing and rematerializing for a good half an hour.

“Mum,” said Harry, a little later, “do you have any idea who this is from?”

He unfurled the cloak and handed her the note, and watched as his mum pursed her lips so tightly that they disappeared.

“It was James’,” she said, strained. “I didn’t realize that Professor Dumbledore still had it, or I would have requested it for you years ago. You’re not to use it in the Castle, Harry.”

There was a resigned look on her face that told Harry that she absolutely knew he would be using it in the Castle.

* * *

And use it he did. There were the forays to the Mirror of Erised (the people he'd heard so many stories about, his _ ami _ and _ aba_, and their parents, are stood beside him and his mum and _ her _ family, and they laughed and hugged each other, alive and vibrant). Then there were the attempts to find Nicholas Flamel in the library (he _ knew _ that he knew the name, and kicked himself when Hermione finally figured it out, because his mum had been in semi-regular correspondence with his wife Perenelle since Harry could remember, and always spoke about how much she enjoyed their letters). There was the absolute debacle with Norbert (he and his mum spent a full week on absolutely frosty terms for her choice to take away fifty points each when he _ knew _ for a fact that she sees students out of bed _ all the time _and how dare she act like it was something new and special when he'd spent ten years hearing her sigh about it). 

And then, in the days after his near-death experience in the Forbidden Forest that broke the feud with his mum, Harry and his friends finally figured out who Flamel was, and what Fluffy was guarding, and how to get past her. It was mid-afternoon, and his scar split open, blinding him with pain, and he _knew_ that something bad was going to happen, that the Stone was in danger. 

* * *

In another universe, Harry James Potter grew up without adults in whom he could trust. In this one, he had only ever known the unwavering support of his mum, who, although strict, would_ always _ listen to what he had to say before reigning down a decision.

But here is the awful truth of life:

There will always be moments when, no matter how attentive or well-intentioned the adults are, they will not be there for the children. There will be near-misses and distractions and accidents that make Fate laugh, and the children will be left on their own.

It was one of those misfortunes, those funny tricks of Fate, that meant that at that very moment, Minerva was not in her office, but rather was in London, called away by chance (in a way that Dumbledore was not) by a nitpicking Ministry official who didn’t really understand Muggle “custody” legalities. So when Harry rushed urgently to find his mum, she was not there to guide him, or provide him any wisdom, or tell him under no uncertain terms was he to go snooping about for the Stone when Dumbledore and the teachers had it well under control.

With his mum and Dumbledore gone and the only other adult that seemed to be around Snape, who was still very much embroiled in the middle of his own vendetta, Harry saw no choice but to protect the Stone with his friends.

In this story, just like in others, Harry and his friends ventured into the bowels of the school to face magical challenges meant to stymie full-grown wizards. 

In this story, just like in others, Harry was worthy of the stone and defeated Voldemort for the second time in his young life.

* * *

When Harry came to, it was to his mum stroking his hair the way she used to when he was very small. He also noticed that Dumbledore seemed to materialize just as he gained consciousness. This, apparently, did not escape Harry’s mum’s notice either.

“You would do well to give us a few moments,” said Harry’s mum icily. It did not surprise him one bit that Dumbledore complied.

Harry couldn’t say he wasn't nervous; he'd been on the receiving end of some of his mum’s more brilliant scolds, and this might be the stupidest thing he’d ever done.

But apparently, it was something _ so _ stupid that his mum was mostly just glad he was okay. “It’s times like these that I remember you were Lily and James’ son first,” she said mistily. “When Lily saw something wrong and nobody fixing it, she had to do something, too. And the gumption to work your way through that sort of magic? All James.”

Harry considered her words for a moment. He'd grown up with stories of these people that he didn't actually know, and even though they were important to him, even though he wished that he'd known them, they still felt a bit distant. "But Mum," he said finally, "_you're_ the one that taught me those things."

Minerva blinked rapidly several times. It was not often that he saw her at a loss for words, and true to form, she recovered quickly, even if he could hear a catch in her throat. "Was I? Well, then I haven't totally failed as a mum." 

"No," Harry said. 

There was so much they needed to talk about, so much to be dealt with—the fact that Voldemort was clearly alive, for example; the fact that Harry and his friends managed to get through enchantments meant for fully-grown wizards; the fact that Harry's touch accidentally killed a teacher. (Lily's sacrifice, as it turned out, was just as powerful no matter whether Harry called her blood-relative's house home, because what really mattered was _love _itself, the most powerful force in the universe, and because Harry grew up loved, the blood coursing through his veins full of Lily's magic still protected him.)

For now, however, his mum was content just to sit with her son, a little boy who had been through a great deal of trauma. There would be time to discuss and understand the ramifications later—time to have _several _chats with Albus about just what, exactly, he was keeping from her—but for now, they sat and unwrapped a good deal of the sweets at his bedside, dispensing with Minerva's strict sugar rules just this once. 

As they chatted, Harry found that as much as he was going to miss his friends, after everything that had happened, he was looking forward to going home and having a normal summer in the Scottish countryside with Sadia and his mum. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, folks. Maybe someday I'll be able to find the spark of joy in this that I used to, and I'll return to the bits of the other years that I started writing, but for now, this is the right decision for me.  
Stay safe during the pandemic xx

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed :)  
comments and kudos always appreciated!


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